Cuttack: India’s Sathish Kumar Karunakaran secured his maiden BWF super 100 title after outwitting World junior bronze medallist Ayush Shetty in an all Indian men’s singles final at the Odisha Masters here Sunday.
The 22-year-old Sathish, who won men’s singles title at India International and had a runner-up finish at Maldives International this season, prevailed 21-18 19-21 21-14 over Ayush in an exciting final.
“I am really happy to win this title. I had prepared well for the last three events in India and one of the targets was to win at home and I am happy I could achieve it,” Sathish told PTI.
“I was playing well in Syed Modi International as well but suffered an injury to my fingers during the second round match. It took some time to recover. I was nervous today as it was my first super 100 final.”
Indian pair of Tanisha Crasto and Dhruv Kapila also stood at the podium after winning the mixed doubles title following a thrilling three-game win over Singapore’s Hee Yong Kai Terry and Tan Wei Han Jessica in a pulsating final.
Tanisha, 20, and 23-year-old Dhruv dished out a gallant fight to rally their way to outwit Hee and Tan 17-21 21-19 23-21 in an hour and 14 minutes.
Tanisha was also in action in the women’s doubles final with partner Ashwini Ponnappa but the Indian pair couldn’t go the distance this time, losing 14-21 17-21 to Indonesian combination of Meilysa Trias Puspitasari and Rachel Allessya Rose.
It was a creditable finish from the Indian duo, which reached the finals at Syed Modi International super 300 in Lucknow and won the Guwahati Masters super 100 last week.
Sixth seeded Indian men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K also finished second best after going down 22-20 18-21 17-21 to seventh-seeded Lin Bing-Wei and Su Ching Heng of Chinese Taipei in a thrilling final.
Sathish had come into the final, having beaten Ayush at the Chhattisgarh India International Challenge this season.
However, there was hardly anything to separate the two Indians though Sathish showed better control and won the key moments to move ahead from 13-13 in the opening game.
From 14-18, Ayush tried to fight back but was erratic. Eventually, Sathish pushed one at the forehand corner to take two game points and sealed it with a smash.
Sathish kept the tempo high to eke out a 6-3 lead before staying ahead at 15-13 but Ayush stepped up and grabbed a one game point with a smash and then dominated a flat exchange to take it to the decider.
Ayush fell into a pool of errors as he sprayed into net, smashed out, and also made judgement errors to lag 1-7 in the decider. Sathish took a six-point advantage at the interval after his opponent sent another wide.
Ayush’s game fell apart against some relentless hitting from Sathish, who grew in confidence and it showed in his body language.
Sathish moved to nine championship points after Ayush found the nets. He squandered three chances before converting and threw his racquet in the air in celebration.
Sathish had also won the mixed doubles titles with partner Aadya Variyath at the Maldives International and finished second best at Malaysia. He had also played for Chennai Superstarz in Premier Badminton League in 2020.
PTI